


What They Dream

by therev



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-18
Updated: 2009-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 08:16:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therev/pseuds/therev
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's raining the day that Dean meets the devil.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What They Dream

It's raining the day that Dean meets the devil. He was in one of the southern states before this meeting but he can't quite remember which and anyway it doesn't matter now because now there is only one state and it is everywhere and that's where he is and was and will always be and in spite of the drizzle the sun is still out which surprises him. It won't be light much longer.

The devil wears khakis. That's not something he would have expected. Button-down and deck shoes, sleeves rolled up, hands in pockets. He's about Dean's height. His expression is placid, maybe a little smug, not quite smiling, brow smooth. He isn't exactly smirking but there's something in his stance that smirks. He's as pretty as some girls Dean has fucked. Prettier than others. Skin dark, hair too. And then pale and blonde. Dean's eyes can't pin him down, like staring too hard into a dark room or trying to chase the floaters in his vision across the sky. There is only the assumption of him. And the khakis.

When he speaks it is without opening his mouth, voice calm and soft and resonant, and it occurs to Dean that this is what Sammy probably expected of the angels. Dean doesn’t wonder why he doesn’t wonder where Sam has gone.

Lucifer is saying something to Dean's mind like "pleasure to meet you, Dean Winchester" and "thank you for the opportunity" but Dean's only waiting for him to shut the fuck up so he can call him "Lucy" and maybe make some comment about the yuppie-casual get-up, but it occurs to him that his head is maybe no longer attached to his body. Oh, yeah, there are his legs over there, and his arms in that clump of smoldering moss.

It’s disappointing.

The Adversary caresses the cheek of Dean's disembodied head. It sits crooked in a bit of grass, catching the rain in its open mouth. Dean can't taste it.

"I owe you so much," Lucifer says. He scoops up the wet lump of Dean from the grass, cradles it, then, for one disturbing moment Dean imagines the devil is about to pucker up and kiss his decapitated head, Salome style, but it's worse when instead Lucifer tips it sideways, lips to lips, and drinks the blood and rain from Dean's mouth, whispers without words, "I would so like to keep you."

When Dean wakes he's in a half-dark motel room in Mississippi. It's the middle of the afternoon and there's a hand on his shoulder and he doesn't realize or won't admit to himself that he's been screaming. Outside, it's raining.

"Sammy," he says, but it isn't Sam. Castiel sits at the foot of the bed, looking kinder than usual, less constipated.

"Fuck do you want?" Dean says, but his voice breaks as he sits up and he might as well be begging for help, reassurance, forgiveness.

Castiel watches him with the unflinching stare of the righteous but speaks softly when he finally does speak.

"It would be false of me to offer you comfort," he says, "or to make promises.”

"I ain't asked for any of it," Dean says, "so feel free to keep up the doom and frigging gloom approach. It's worked for you so far."

The angel deflates a little, almost imperceptibly, but Dean notices the slouch in his shoulders. Fuck it. He can’t be expected to save the world and keep up the spirits of every celestial who’s feeling inadequate.

Castiel’s hands move in the sheets, as if they might hold some solution he can't quite grasp. "I can offer," he tries.

"Divine inebriation?" Dean asks, interrupting, turning up the emtpy bottle on the bedside table.

"Quiet rest," Castiel finishes.

Dean breathes a little laugh, smirks, sobers, then, "no shit?"

"I'll be here," Castiel says, extends a hand toward Dean's forehead and Dean goes cross-eyed watching it until the touch comes both warm and cool, dark and bright, and then there’s a color he can’t name and he's asleep before his eyes have closed and Castiel catches him, lays him down gently. At first Castiel watches lashes on cheeks, then the easy rolling beneath pink eye lids, then wallpaper. He waits.

He used to wonder what humans dreamt about. He doesn’t know why he’s never looked before or if he ever could have before or if he could now with anyone else. He knows now, even beyond the nightmares, what they dream. One of them at least.

Anyway. He hopes it’s only a dream.


End file.
